Goat Cheese Souffle

Recipe from The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters. We also added sauted mushrooms when we were filling the egg mixture into the ramkins. Basically this recipe makes a bechamel with some spices, adds 4 egg yolks and 4oz mild goat cheese, and then its folded into 4 egg whites whipped into firm peaks.

When we made this recipe, we didn't have an electric mixer, so the egg whites were actually whipped by hand. I was worried that this would be too much work to do, and though it was a lot of work, it was possible to do. And the benefit of whipping by hand was that it was a lot easier to tell when the egg whites got to the firm peak stage. It is really easy to over whip using a machine, and really difficult for me to tell what the stages are with a machine, so doing this by hand actually made it easier to get the right consistency.

Pork Shoulder Stew

The above pork shoulder and mirepoix stew was made in using a typical sort of stew recipe: sear the meat, then remove meat from pot and seat aside. Caramelizing onions, add minced garlic and saute for 30 seconds, add minced carrots, minced celery, and two minced tomatoes until their colors are vibrant. Add meat to pot, and top off with cold chicken stock, a bit of wine and some cold water. Bring to a light boil, and partially cover pot, and leave a light simmer for an hour or more.

Also someone else made bread using the No-Knead Bread recipe adapted bu Mark Bittman from Jim Lahey